This is why I still have some serious concerns about overclocking Athlon CPU's. Given they run quite hot, if the CPU cooler unit has fan problems, unless you connected the fan power cable to the motherboard and enabled overheat sensing in the BIOS setup, a fan failure may be a prelude to a pretty expensive CPU thermal failure. I think I'll wait until the "Thunderbird" CPU with its "Socket A" design instead. (smile)
Unfortunately, not all Japanese companies are so generous when it comes to doujinshi.
Konami, for example, has heavily surpressed any doujinshi related to the Tokimeki Memorial dating simulator computer game (Konami has the Japanese copyright on that game). The same applies for Nintendo--they are VERY protective of the Pocket Monsters (neé Pokémon) copyrights, also. I should know--an online friend of mine (Yoshitaki Ishigami) is one of the managers of Komiket (the largest convention of doujinshi in Japan--it attracts about 550,000 patrons in two days!); he told me that a few companies in Japan are protective of their copyrights, as the examples I cited above.
But you are right--many famous manga creators started in the doujinshi field. Besides CLAMP, Keniichi Sonoda (of GUNSMITH CATS fame) also started as a doujinshi creator. In fact, many professional manga creators often do doujinshi under assumed names to supplement their income (famous manga creators in Japan like Leiji Matsumoto, Akira Toriyama, Osamu Akimoto, Naoko Takeuchi, Rumiko Takahashi, and a few others are very unusual success cases--most manga creators don't really make that much money).
That's why the Teledesic system is such a great idea. Because they will use 844 satellites orbiting at 850 miles altitude, you'll have a LOT less data lag (I've read that Teledesic satellites can offer at least 45 megabits per second data transfer rates anywhere in the world). That's the equivalent of a T3 data line.
This is the best solution that will cure our "digital divide" problem of getting broadband Internet access to rural areas far beyond the reach of cable and ADSL modems. I'm sure that when the system becomes operational the first places that will get Teledesic transceivers will be Indian reservations, most of which are FAR beyond the reach of even normal telephone lines.
The problem with iSky is that the satellites will be in geosynchronous orbit. Given someone else here posted that it takes 0.25 seconds for data to travel from a ground transceiver to the satellite itself (a sum total of 0.5 seconds for data to travel from transmitter to satellite to a receiver), that's way too much data lag for many purposes.
The better solution is the upcoming Teledesic system that should be operational by 2004. Unlike iSky, Teledesic will have a constellation of satellites orbiting from 850 miles up, so the transmission time from the ground to the sats will be far, far shorter. This means wireless data transmission rates at T3 line speeds (45 megabits per second) from anywhere in the world. This is perhaps the solution for people who need broadband Internet access but live too far away for cable or ADSL modem access.
I have news for you. The Slot A Athlon CPU's run VERY hot even with a decent heatsink/fan unit. That's why Athlon systems frequently have at least three fan systems inside (one for the CPU, the power supply fan, and a secondary case cooling fan). You should see the heatsink/fan units for Athlon CPU's--BIG mothers with seriously large heatsink fins. Small wonder why I have some concerns about overclocking Athlon CPU's. The Pentium IIIE in their Slot 1 and FC-PGA designs tend to run a bit cooler, so you there is less need for oversized heatsink/fan units--just make sure the fan(s) have a high-quality bearing so it lasts a long time in normal use.
I've seen some of those oversized Socket 370 heatsink/fan units. Small they're not (they're often over 30 mm in height).
A few suggestions though: 1) make sure the heatsink have plenty of fins to dissipate the heat; 2) make sure the fan uses a high-quality ball-bearing design, otherwise it will fail fairly quickly; and 3) it's a good idea to use thermal grease if you're using a Celeron 366A-533A with its PPGA design for overclocking, otherwise it won't be neccessary because the FC-PGA design of the Celeron 566-600 allows the CPU circuitry "carrier" to directly contact the heatsink/fan unit.
However, by drastically reducing the need to go to virtual memory, things in general will run quite a bit faster--sometimes up to 50%. There's good reason for this: processing data in RAM is a lot faster than waiting for part of the information to be read off the virtual memory file on the hard drive. For business applications, this is real critical.
Besides, if you're running an image processing program, you want as much as 256 MB of RAM to process large-format 24-bit or 32-bit color images, even if you have a Pentium III or Athlon CPU. For image processing, a 650 MHz or faster CPU is a real good idea.
My big complaint about overclocking CPU's is that while you can get better heatsink/fan units with thermal glue to better dissipate the heat when you overclock the CPU, what happens if the fan dies? This could result in a Chernobyl-like meltdown of the CPU, and you'll be out US$65 to US$200 for a lower-speed overclocked CPU that is now useless. This is especially true of the AMD Athlon CPU, because the Athlon CPU runs quite hot even when NOT overclocked.
Besides, a more efficient method to get more speed is to get as much RAM as you can afford and get a faster hard drive. I usually recommend around 128 to 192 MB of system RAM, because then you don't have to use the hard drive so much as virtual memory, which speeds things up quite a lot.
Looks like I have to throw in my two cents, too! (^_^) --Japanese smiley emoticon
Personally, my favorites are:
Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon - If you can get the original Japanese unedited episodes, you'll be pleasantly surprised how good the series is. Watch especially the first seven episodes from the first season and practically the entire third season (Sailormoon S); those first seven episodes have strong, very good storytelling, and the entire Sailormoon S season had most of its episodes with VERY good storytelling, humor and drama.
Shoujo Kakumei Utena - One of the weirdest and most unusual anime series EVER done. I'd HIGHLY suggest you bring along a small bottle of aspirin, Tylenol or Advil because you will get a major headache trying to figure out all the numerous plot twists (many of which are major red herrings). ^_^
Slayers, Slayers Next and Slayers Try - EXCELLENT storytelling, and yes, it is a major spoof of the whole idea of fantasy quests. You've got to love Megumi Hayashibara's great voice work on that series (she gets the bad temper voice down perfectly), and watching Xelloss and Phyria go after each other in Slayers Try is half the fun of that series.
Tenkuu no Escaflowne - One of the best anime series I've EVER seen. Great storytelling, and some of the best animation work I've ever seen, no contest.
Saber Marionette J - A surprisingly good anime series, especially once the subtitled edition came out from AnimeVillage.com. Watching Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry "grow up" is wonderful, as is Hanagata making an a** of himself throughout the series.
Excel Saga - One of the most weird, demented, and FUNNY anime series I've EVER seen! The main character often goes off on absolutely weird tangents, and the ED (end credits sequence) is absolutely wickedly funny! ADV Films has gotten the US distribution rights, so hopefully we'll see it in the US market in about a year's time.
I however, have trouble recommending Shin Seiki Evangelion. The reason is that the series is a bit too adult for many viewers, the level of violence can be a bit shocking (especially Episode 19), and Episodes 21-26 are just too strange to understand for many viewers.
I'm surprised NOBODY here has mentioned Apple Computer.
After all, Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, both people firmly rooted in the 1960's counterculture movement and were members of the Homebrew Computer Club in the 1970's. Given that type of background, by nature Apple should be a socially conscious company.
Now, if we can just get Jobs to donate US$1 million to save and improve KTEH (the PBS affiliate in San Jose, CA).
What's interesting about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the fact they recently contributed over $100 million to develop an AIDS vaccine. And it was this foundation that helped bail out the United Way of Santa Clara County after it got into massive financial trouble lately. Now, if we geeks can convince Steven Jobs of Apple to shell out US$1 million to upgrade the facilities of KTEH (the PBS affiliate in San Jose, CA).
Say what you want about Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, but their enormous philantrophic efforts has resulted in many libraries, improvements in institutions of higher education, money for the arts, and on and on. In fact, the Public Broadcast System in the USA would never have been possible if it weren't for generous grants from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in the late 1960's.
I think that while everyone goes out there and does their fashionable Microsoft bashing, they conveniently forget that it was Microsoft with Windows 95 that made it easy for computer users to log onto the Internet. The Dial-Up Networking feature of Windows 95 not only gave you IPX/SPX (through NWLink) and NetBEUI through modem lines, but the all-important TCP/IP connection using the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). That made it real easy to run email, FTP, Telnet and web browser programs, and it didn't take long for Netscape to ship a version of Navigator that worked under Windows 95.
It should be noted that the use of the Internet exponentially took off after Windows 95 was released. Yes, I know about the Trumpet WinSock program that allowed Windows 3.1x users to log onto the Internet, but Trumpet WinSock was a somewhat tricky program to configure. And Apple back in 1995 was undergoing through its throes of heavy money losses and losing customers. And Linux back in those days was more a curiosity than today's well-rounded OS.
I think the DoJ may NOT recommend a breakup for these reasons:
1. The horrid AT&T breakup experience. That breakup caused years and years of confusion by customers who needed integrated voice and data communications services (because they had to go to multiple vendors), and didn't really settle down until only a few years ago.
2. Lawrence Lessig--the legal advisor for the DoJ side--has said that he's not in favor of a breakup.
3. One Albert Gore, Jr. may NOT want to provide easy ammunition for one George W. Bush, especially during the Presidential debates.
4. The ultimate solution--namely separating system sales from operating system sales--may be the easiest and best solution for everyone involved.
Gawd, the DoJ spends over US$40 million dollars for a solution (separating OS and system sales) I suggested two years ago! They could have saved themselves a ton of money if the DoJ had pursued this course.
However, the vast majority of people who have access to small satellite dishes around the world do have access to CNN and CNN International, which of course is owned by Turner Networks, a division of Time-Warner, soon to merge with AOL.
In short, most of the world recognizes the CNN "brand." Heck, most of the world's leaders try to catch CNN for news--it's only a bit later that the BBC is competing with their own satellite news channel.
What I find sad about the entire discussion on the AOL/Time-Warner merger is that in the zeal of Slashdot regulars to dismember Microsoft, they have implicitly ignored what could the world's most frightening corporate entity EVER.
I mean look at AOL Time Warner's assets:
1. 23 million worldwide users of AOL and CompuServe--not a small group of users.
2. Time-Life Publishing, one of the world's most influential group of general-interest magazine publishers (Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and others).
3. Warner Brothers movie studio, a major player in movie production.
4. The WB Network, an increasingly powerful TV network with both prime time and children's programming.
5. Warner Music, one of the most influential musical labels in the world.
6. The CNN cable channels, with CNN, CNN Headline News, CNNfn and CNN/SI.
7. TBS Superstation, TNT and Turner Classic Movies cable channels.
8. HBO Networks, with its multichannel premium cable channel offerings plus TVKO pay-per-view programming.
9. Time-Warner Cable, the second largest cable operator outside of AT&T Cable Services (neé TCI Cable).
10. Roadrunner, a broadband Internet service provider using the Time-Warner Cable infrastructure.
11. DC Comics, a major and influential comics publisher.
12. Hanna-Barbera animation studio (and its massive animation film library).
13. The world's largest movie film library, no contest.
I'm sure there are other assets I haven't mentioned, but just these ten parts of AOL Time Warner have _enormous_ influence on what we read in magazines, what we see in the movie theater and on TV programming, what we hear in music and soon what we can read on the Internet. This is the type of media control that William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer could not imagine in their lifetimes and it makes the fictional Elliot Carver from the James Bond movie TOMORROW NEVER DIES seem not as far-fetched as some people think.
In short, it has the very prospect of stifling free expression itself. The very possibility that unless it is approved by AOL Time Warner or it won't be shown is no longer a fantasy.
AOL Time Warner, in short, will make the power of Microsoft over desktop operating systems seem like a minor incident in comparison.
I think the problem here in dealing with people who have a mental illness is that there are still way too many stigmas associated with this problem.
And that's despite the fact that modern medical research in the last 50 years has made it possible for people who in the past should have been locked up in a mental institution (or even worse, subject to this unhuman thing called a lobotomy) to function normally again.
I mean, modern research into traditional herbal remedies like St. John's wort and the development of perscription medicines that act specifically on modifying how our brain chemistry works has dramatically reduced incidences of extremes of mania and depression. People that used to require physical restraints to stop their manic attacks or literally could not get out of bed to do anything now have a chance to act normally again.
Unfortunately, we've also run into a problem of misdiagnosis and giving medicines for all the wrong reasons; there are way too many instances of young children being put on Ritalin and SSRI inhibitor medicines like Prozac, Paxil, Effexor, etc. just to stop Attention Deficit Disorder without a true, proper diagnosis that may not even require the child to be on medication.
In short, while modern psychiatic medicine has definitely helped people who were deemed beyond help in the past, the overuse of them makes it too easy to turn children into the wrong type of person in the long run.
Just what kind of beer were you drinking? If you were in Bavaria, beer has to be fairly cold because the purity laws there results in beer that goes stale pretty quickly at warmer temperatures.
It depends on what is the yeast used to ferment the beer; if it doesn't ferment on the bottom of the barrel, then it could be served at wine cellar temperatures (10-12 degrees Celsius) without going stale quickly.
Remember, many British beers uses yeast that ferments at the top of the barrel, so this means the fermenting process can occur at around room temperature (20 degrees Celsius). As a result, you drink British beer at around wine cellar temperature (10-12 degrees Celsius).
German beer (which most of the world is familiar with) ferments at the bottom of the barrel, so this means the fermenting process has to work at nearly the freezing temperature of water (around 2-4 degrees Celsius). That's why you drink it at refrigerator temperatures, and American beers are that way because the American beer companies were all founded by people of German descent.
Try the St. Pauli Girl, Spaten or Beck's that is brewed in Germany for European consumption; they have to be served cold or it tastes terrible.
Here in the Bay Area, my favorites are Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Anchor Steam beer. Beer that are definitely distinctive in taste and WAY superior to that p*** called Budweiser.;-)
One little problem: how about giving us record label and the catalog numbers for your Blind Guardian's albums? I'd like to get them but without that information, I'm not going to be able to order them online....
Netscape needs to desperately put in some time in terms of usability improvements. Trying to find setup menus, configuration preferences, etc. is just a mess in Netscape 6 PR1 compared to IE 5.01. This is where Microsoft's excellent "Usability Lab" comes in--Microsoft has a development group that have actual users take a program through its paces and get feedback on where to put in menus, icons, setup options, and so on.
We all hope that future public beta builds of Netscape 6 will be a bit speedier and also has a better user interface, because if this is what we're going to get in Netscape 6, we're not going to hold out hope for end users to switch from Internet Explorer 5.01 (and eventually 5.5).
Having played with Netscape 6.0 PR1, I have one comment to describe this program: you have got to be kidding!
First, the program is an absolute system hog--it makes Internet Explorer 5.01 for Windows 95/98/NT/2000 seem small in comparison. Secondly, when the program starts, it takes a LONG, LONG time to start the program compared to IE 5.01. Third, while it does render quickly once you DO get the program started, the way it renders many web pages sucks like a vacuum cleaner. -_- Pages like espn.go.com, cnn.com, www.zdnet.com, and even slashdot.org look strangely formatted in comparison to IE 5.01 and even Communicator 4.72. Finally, the "look and feel" of Netscape 6.0 is frequently extremely unintuitive compared to IE 5.01.
If this is what Netscape 6.0 is, Netscape is history, even IF Microsoft is broken up.
I'm going to watch with great interest what happens IF the DoJ does succeed in breaking up Microsoft (but that could not happen until at least the Supreme Court settles the case some 18 to 30 months from now; if George W. Bush gets elected, you can forget about the breakup EVER happening).
If the breakup can go smoothly like the Standard Oil Trust breakup, fine; but if it ends up like the AT&T breakup it could create a mess of competing standards that will take a few years to resolve, and it's only within the last few years we've finally got over the effects of that breakup.
You have just set back the computer industry six years or more as we have just set the stage for the "balkanization" of the computer industry with multiple competing standards. This will be the ultimate IT manager nightmare, because they will have be current on multiple competing versions of Windows, Linux, BeOS and whatever x86-compatible operating system comes along the line.
The result is very simple: IT managers will start to sit on the sidelines waiting for the standards to settle down before buying any new hardware, and it'll be akin to the side effects of the AT&T breakup in 1984. You can tell what THIS will do computer hardware sales.
Don't laugh when I say "I told you so" at the end of 2001 when the computer industry is in the doldrums because of the combination of the collapse of Microsoft and the collapse of the Internet industry due to stockholders demanding profits.
Slashdot Mirror
This is why I still have some serious concerns about overclocking Athlon CPU's. Given they run quite hot, if the CPU cooler unit has fan problems, unless you connected the fan power cable to the motherboard and enabled overheat sensing in the BIOS setup, a fan failure may be a prelude to a pretty expensive CPU thermal failure. I think I'll wait until the "Thunderbird" CPU with its "Socket A" design instead. (smile)
Unfortunately, not all Japanese companies are so generous when it comes to doujinshi.
Konami, for example, has heavily surpressed any doujinshi related to the Tokimeki Memorial dating simulator computer game (Konami has the Japanese copyright on that game). The same applies for Nintendo--they are VERY protective of the Pocket Monsters (neé Pokémon) copyrights, also. I should know--an online friend of mine (Yoshitaki Ishigami) is one of the managers of Komiket (the largest convention of doujinshi in Japan--it attracts about 550,000 patrons in two days!); he told me that a few companies in Japan are protective of their copyrights, as the examples I cited above.
But you are right--many famous manga creators started in the doujinshi field. Besides CLAMP, Keniichi Sonoda (of GUNSMITH CATS fame) also started as a doujinshi creator. In fact, many professional manga creators often do doujinshi under assumed names to supplement their income (famous manga creators in Japan like Leiji Matsumoto, Akira Toriyama, Osamu Akimoto, Naoko Takeuchi, Rumiko Takahashi, and a few others are very unusual success cases--most manga creators don't really make that much money).
That's why the Teledesic system is such a great idea. Because they will use 844 satellites orbiting at 850 miles altitude, you'll have a LOT less data lag (I've read that Teledesic satellites can offer at least 45 megabits per second data transfer rates anywhere in the world). That's the equivalent of a T3 data line.
This is the best solution that will cure our "digital divide" problem of getting broadband Internet access to rural areas far beyond the reach of cable and ADSL modems. I'm sure that when the system becomes operational the first places that will get Teledesic transceivers will be Indian reservations, most of which are FAR beyond the reach of even normal telephone lines.
The problem with iSky is that the satellites will be in geosynchronous orbit. Given someone else here posted that it takes 0.25 seconds for data to travel from a ground transceiver to the satellite itself (a sum total of 0.5 seconds for data to travel from transmitter to satellite to a receiver), that's way too much data lag for many purposes.
The better solution is the upcoming Teledesic system that should be operational by 2004. Unlike iSky, Teledesic will have a constellation of satellites orbiting from 850 miles up, so the transmission time from the ground to the sats will be far, far shorter. This means wireless data transmission rates at T3 line speeds (45 megabits per second) from anywhere in the world. This is perhaps the solution for people who need broadband Internet access but live too far away for cable or ADSL modem access.
I have news for you. The Slot A Athlon CPU's run VERY hot even with a decent heatsink/fan unit. That's why Athlon systems frequently have at least three fan systems inside (one for the CPU, the power supply fan, and a secondary case cooling fan). You should see the heatsink/fan units for Athlon CPU's--BIG mothers with seriously large heatsink fins. Small wonder why I have some concerns about overclocking Athlon CPU's. The Pentium IIIE in their Slot 1 and FC-PGA designs tend to run a bit cooler, so you there is less need for oversized heatsink/fan units--just make sure the fan(s) have a high-quality bearing so it lasts a long time in normal use.
I've seen some of those oversized Socket 370 heatsink/fan units. Small they're not (they're often over 30 mm in height).
A few suggestions though: 1) make sure the heatsink have plenty of fins to dissipate the heat; 2) make sure the fan uses a high-quality ball-bearing design, otherwise it will fail fairly quickly; and 3) it's a good idea to use thermal grease if you're using a Celeron 366A-533A with its PPGA design for overclocking, otherwise it won't be neccessary because the FC-PGA design of the Celeron 566-600 allows the CPU circuitry "carrier" to directly contact the heatsink/fan unit.
However, by drastically reducing the need to go to virtual memory, things in general will run quite a bit faster--sometimes up to 50%. There's good reason for this: processing data in RAM is a lot faster than waiting for part of the information to be read off the virtual memory file on the hard drive. For business applications, this is real critical.
Besides, if you're running an image processing program, you want as much as 256 MB of RAM to process large-format 24-bit or 32-bit color images, even if you have a Pentium III or Athlon CPU. For image processing, a 650 MHz or faster CPU is a real good idea.
My big complaint about overclocking CPU's is that while you can get better heatsink/fan units with thermal glue to better dissipate the heat when you overclock the CPU, what happens if the fan dies? This could result in a Chernobyl-like meltdown of the CPU, and you'll be out US$65 to US$200 for a lower-speed overclocked CPU that is now useless. This is especially true of the AMD Athlon CPU, because the Athlon CPU runs quite hot even when NOT overclocked.
Besides, a more efficient method to get more speed is to get as much RAM as you can afford and get a faster hard drive. I usually recommend around 128 to 192 MB of system RAM, because then you don't have to use the hard drive so much as virtual memory, which speeds things up quite a lot.
Looks like I have to throw in my two cents, too! (^_^) --Japanese smiley emoticon
Personally, my favorites are:
Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon - If you can get the original Japanese unedited episodes, you'll be pleasantly surprised how good the series is. Watch especially the first seven episodes from the first season and practically the entire third season (Sailormoon S); those first seven episodes have strong, very good storytelling, and the entire Sailormoon S season had most of its episodes with VERY good storytelling, humor and drama.
Shoujo Kakumei Utena - One of the weirdest and most unusual anime series EVER done. I'd HIGHLY suggest you bring along a small bottle of aspirin, Tylenol or Advil because you will get a major headache trying to figure out all the numerous plot twists (many of which are major red herrings). ^_^
Slayers, Slayers Next and Slayers Try - EXCELLENT storytelling, and yes, it is a major spoof of the whole idea of fantasy quests. You've got to love Megumi Hayashibara's great voice work on that series (she gets the bad temper voice down perfectly), and watching Xelloss and Phyria go after each other in Slayers Try is half the fun of that series.
Tenkuu no Escaflowne - One of the best anime series I've EVER seen. Great storytelling, and some of the best animation work I've ever seen, no contest.
Saber Marionette J - A surprisingly good anime series, especially once the subtitled edition came out from AnimeVillage.com. Watching Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry "grow up" is wonderful, as is Hanagata making an a** of himself throughout the series.
Excel Saga - One of the most weird, demented, and FUNNY anime series I've EVER seen! The main character often goes off on absolutely weird tangents, and the ED (end credits sequence) is absolutely wickedly funny! ADV Films has gotten the US distribution rights, so hopefully we'll see it in the US market in about a year's time.
I however, have trouble recommending Shin Seiki Evangelion. The reason is that the series is a bit too adult for many viewers, the level of violence can be a bit shocking (especially Episode 19), and Episodes 21-26 are just too strange to understand for many viewers.
I'm surprised NOBODY here has mentioned Apple Computer.
After all, Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, both people firmly rooted in the 1960's counterculture movement and were members of the Homebrew Computer Club in the 1970's. Given that type of background, by nature Apple should be a socially conscious company.
Now, if we can just get Jobs to donate US$1 million to save and improve KTEH (the PBS affiliate in San Jose, CA).
What's interesting about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the fact they recently contributed over $100 million to develop an AIDS vaccine. And it was this foundation that helped bail out the United Way of Santa Clara County after it got into massive financial trouble lately. Now, if we geeks can convince Steven Jobs of Apple to shell out US$1 million to upgrade the facilities of KTEH (the PBS affiliate in San Jose, CA).
Say what you want about Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, but their enormous philantrophic efforts has resulted in many libraries, improvements in institutions of higher education, money for the arts, and on and on. In fact, the Public Broadcast System in the USA would never have been possible if it weren't for generous grants from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in the late 1960's.
I think that while everyone goes out there and does their fashionable Microsoft bashing, they conveniently forget that it was Microsoft with Windows 95 that made it easy for computer users to log onto the Internet. The Dial-Up Networking feature of Windows 95 not only gave you IPX/SPX (through NWLink) and NetBEUI through modem lines, but the all-important TCP/IP connection using the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). That made it real easy to run email, FTP, Telnet and web browser programs, and it didn't take long for Netscape to ship a version of Navigator that worked under Windows 95.
It should be noted that the use of the Internet exponentially took off after Windows 95 was released. Yes, I know about the Trumpet WinSock program that allowed Windows 3.1x users to log onto the Internet, but Trumpet WinSock was a somewhat tricky program to configure. And Apple back in 1995 was undergoing through its throes of heavy money losses and losing customers. And Linux back in those days was more a curiosity than today's well-rounded OS.
Folks,
I think the DoJ may NOT recommend a breakup for these reasons:
1. The horrid AT&T breakup experience. That breakup caused years and years of confusion by customers who needed integrated voice and data communications services (because they had to go to multiple vendors), and didn't really settle down until only a few years ago.
2. Lawrence Lessig--the legal advisor for the DoJ side--has said that he's not in favor of a breakup.
3. One Albert Gore, Jr. may NOT want to provide easy ammunition for one George W. Bush, especially during the Presidential debates.
4. The ultimate solution--namely separating system sales from operating system sales--may be the easiest and best solution for everyone involved.
Gawd, the DoJ spends over US$40 million dollars for a solution (separating OS and system sales) I suggested two years ago! They could have saved themselves a ton of money if the DoJ had pursued this course.
However, the vast majority of people who have access to small satellite dishes around the world do have access to CNN and CNN International, which of course is owned by Turner Networks, a division of Time-Warner, soon to merge with AOL.
In short, most of the world recognizes the CNN "brand." Heck, most of the world's leaders try to catch CNN for news--it's only a bit later that the BBC is competing with their own satellite news channel.
What I find sad about the entire discussion on the AOL/Time-Warner merger is that in the zeal of Slashdot regulars to dismember Microsoft, they have implicitly ignored what could the world's most frightening corporate entity EVER.
I mean look at AOL Time Warner's assets:
1. 23 million worldwide users of AOL and CompuServe--not a small group of users.
2. Time-Life Publishing, one of the world's most influential group of general-interest magazine publishers (Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and others).
3. Warner Brothers movie studio, a major player in movie production.
4. The WB Network, an increasingly powerful TV network with both prime time and children's programming.
5. Warner Music, one of the most influential musical labels in the world.
6. The CNN cable channels, with CNN, CNN Headline News, CNNfn and CNN/SI.
7. TBS Superstation, TNT and Turner Classic Movies cable channels.
8. HBO Networks, with its multichannel premium cable channel offerings plus TVKO pay-per-view programming.
9. Time-Warner Cable, the second largest cable operator outside of AT&T Cable Services (neé TCI Cable).
10. Roadrunner, a broadband Internet service provider using the Time-Warner Cable infrastructure.
11. DC Comics, a major and influential comics publisher.
12. Hanna-Barbera animation studio (and its massive animation film library).
13. The world's largest movie film library, no contest.
I'm sure there are other assets I haven't mentioned, but just these ten parts of AOL Time Warner have _enormous_ influence on what we read in magazines, what we see in the movie theater and on TV programming, what we hear in music and soon what we can read on the Internet. This is the type of media control that William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer could not imagine in their lifetimes and it makes the fictional Elliot Carver from the James Bond movie TOMORROW NEVER DIES seem not as far-fetched as some people think.
In short, it has the very prospect of stifling free expression itself. The very possibility that unless it is approved by AOL Time Warner or it won't be shown is no longer a fantasy.
AOL Time Warner, in short, will make the power of Microsoft over desktop operating systems seem like a minor incident in comparison.
I think the problem here in dealing with people who have a mental illness is that there are still way too many stigmas associated with this problem.
And that's despite the fact that modern medical research in the last 50 years has made it possible for people who in the past should have been locked up in a mental institution (or even worse, subject to this unhuman thing called a lobotomy) to function normally again.
I mean, modern research into traditional herbal remedies like St. John's wort and the development of perscription medicines that act specifically on modifying how our brain chemistry works has dramatically reduced incidences of extremes of mania and depression. People that used to require physical restraints to stop their manic attacks or literally could not get out of bed to do anything now have a chance to act normally again.
Unfortunately, we've also run into a problem of misdiagnosis and giving medicines for all the wrong reasons; there are way too many instances of young children being put on Ritalin and SSRI inhibitor medicines like Prozac, Paxil, Effexor, etc. just to stop Attention Deficit Disorder without a true, proper diagnosis that may not even require the child to be on medication.
In short, while modern psychiatic medicine has definitely helped people who were deemed beyond help in the past, the overuse of them makes it too easy to turn children into the wrong type of person in the long run.
Just what kind of beer were you drinking? If you were in Bavaria, beer has to be fairly cold because the purity laws there results in beer that goes stale pretty quickly at warmer temperatures.
It depends on what is the yeast used to ferment the beer; if it doesn't ferment on the bottom of the barrel, then it could be served at wine cellar temperatures (10-12 degrees Celsius) without going stale quickly.
It depends on the British beer.
Remember, many British beers uses yeast that ferments at the top of the barrel, so this means the fermenting process can occur at around room temperature (20 degrees Celsius). As a result, you drink British beer at around wine cellar temperature (10-12 degrees Celsius).
German beer (which most of the world is familiar with) ferments at the bottom of the barrel, so this means the fermenting process has to work at nearly the freezing temperature of water (around 2-4 degrees Celsius). That's why you drink it at refrigerator temperatures, and American beers are that way because the American beer companies were all founded by people of German descent.
Try the St. Pauli Girl, Spaten or Beck's that is brewed in Germany for European consumption; they have to be served cold or it tastes terrible.
Here in the Bay Area, my favorites are Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Anchor Steam beer. Beer that are definitely distinctive in taste and WAY superior to that p*** called Budweiser. ;-)
Surely you jest.
;-)
I prefer a REAL CD disk (since I have a home stereo CD player, a CD boombox and a car stereo CD player).
roamer,
One little problem: how about giving us record label and the catalog numbers for your Blind Guardian's albums? I'd like to get them but without that information, I'm not going to be able to order them online....
Sorry, but no cigar. :-(
Netscape needs to desperately put in some time in terms of usability improvements. Trying to find setup menus, configuration preferences, etc. is just a mess in Netscape 6 PR1 compared to IE 5.01. This is where Microsoft's excellent "Usability Lab" comes in--Microsoft has a development group that have actual users take a program through its paces and get feedback on where to put in menus, icons, setup options, and so on.
We all hope that future public beta builds of Netscape 6 will be a bit speedier and also has a better user interface, because if this is what we're going to get in Netscape 6, we're not going to hold out hope for end users to switch from Internet Explorer 5.01 (and eventually 5.5).
Having played with Netscape 6.0 PR1, I have one comment to describe this program: you have got to be kidding!
First, the program is an absolute system hog--it makes Internet Explorer 5.01 for Windows 95/98/NT/2000 seem small in comparison. Secondly, when the program starts, it takes a LONG, LONG time to start the program compared to IE 5.01. Third, while it does render quickly once you DO get the program started, the way it renders many web pages sucks like a vacuum cleaner. -_- Pages like espn.go.com, cnn.com, www.zdnet.com, and even slashdot.org look strangely formatted in comparison to IE 5.01 and even Communicator 4.72. Finally, the "look and feel" of Netscape 6.0 is frequently extremely unintuitive compared to IE 5.01.
If this is what Netscape 6.0 is, Netscape is history, even IF Microsoft is broken up.
I'm going to watch with great interest what happens IF the DoJ does succeed in breaking up Microsoft (but that could not happen until at least the Supreme Court settles the case some 18 to 30 months from now; if George W. Bush gets elected, you can forget about the breakup EVER happening).
If the breakup can go smoothly like the Standard Oil Trust breakup, fine; but if it ends up like the AT&T breakup it could create a mess of competing standards that will take a few years to resolve, and it's only within the last few years we've finally got over the effects of that breakup.
Folks,
You reap what you sow.
You have just set back the computer industry six years or more as we have just set the stage for the "balkanization" of the computer industry with multiple competing standards. This will be the ultimate IT manager nightmare, because they will have be current on multiple competing versions of Windows, Linux, BeOS and whatever x86-compatible operating system comes along the line.
The result is very simple: IT managers will start to sit on the sidelines waiting for the standards to settle down before buying any new hardware, and it'll be akin to the side effects of the AT&T breakup in 1984. You can tell what THIS will do computer hardware sales.
Don't laugh when I say "I told you so" at the end of 2001 when the computer industry is in the doldrums because of the combination of the collapse of Microsoft and the collapse of the Internet industry due to stockholders demanding profits.